The will of Gabrielle Kerouac, Jack Kerouac's mother. A Florida judge ruled last month the signature was a forgery.

Photo: Courtesy Of Gerald Nicosia

The will of Gabrielle Kerouac, Jack Kerouac's mother. A Florida...

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Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac from "Kerouac" a film by John Antonelli, 1949.
Photo by : Carolyn Cassady

Photo: Carolyn Cassady

Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac from "Kerouac" a film by John...

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Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg's belongings are on the auction block Thursday, Oct. 7, 1999, at Sotheby's in New York, including this undated photograph of a young Jack Kerouac in his Columbia University Football Uniform. The Sotheby's auction titled "Allen Ginsberg and Friends" offers photos of Ginsberg with his longtime companion, poet Peter Orlovsky, and with Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. (AP Photo/Sotheby's)
Ran on: 08-15-2009
This photo of Jack Kerouac in football mode at Columbia University was auctioned off.

Photo: Sotheby's, AP

Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg's belongings are on the auction...

Toward the end of writer Jack Kerouac's life, the so-called King of the Beats was having trouble paying his mortgage. Upon his death in 1969, his estate was valued at $91- compared with around $20 million today.

If the soft-spoken, hard-drinking author were still alive, he surely would be shaking his head, but not only because of the value of his estate. For 15 years, a bitter legal battle over who controls Kerouac's legacy has pitted his in-laws against a destitute nephew and deceased daughter.

The drama peaked in late July, when a Florida judge ruled that the will controlling the Kerouac estate was forged. The court decision raises questions about who controls the rights to Kerouac's works and future royalties.

The lawsuit is winding and complex, but the basic facts are: When Jack Kerouac died, he left everything to his mother, Gabrielle. When she died, she left everything, including Jack's literary estate, to Stella Sampas, Jack's third wife, who then left it to her six siblings. In 1994, Kerouac's only daughter, Jan Kerouac, asserted that her grandmother Gabrielle's will was forged, and filed a lawsuit. She died two years later, but Paul Blake Jr., the writer's nephew, continued the litigation.

In his July 24 ruling, Florida Judge George Greer concluded: "Gabrielle Kerouac was not a well woman when her purported will was signed. Clearly, Gabrielle Kerouac was physically unable to sign the document dated February 13, 1973, and, more importantly, that which appears on the Will is not her signature. Her last will and testament is a forgery."

"Justice has finally been done," cheered Kerouac biographer Gerry Nicosia of Corte Madera, who supported Kerouac's daughter and nephew in their lawsuit against the in-laws and was present at the trial. "Jack had a strong feeling for justice, including economic justice. He came from a poor family and he understood that poor people are often exploited."

A statement from the Sampas family after the ruling downplays the decision and hints at an appeal.

"The practical effect of this ruling appears to be none," said John Sampas, executor of Kerouac's estate. "At her death, our sister bequeathed to us Jack Kerouac's works and legacy, and we will continue to protect and promote them as Stella's rightful heirs and loving brothers and sisters."

After Stella died in 1990, her estate included the original Teletype scroll of "On the Road," and Kerouac's paintings, journals, letters, and unpublished novels and stories. The scroll was sold for $2.43 million to the owner of the Indianapolis Colts, and actor Johnny Depp bought Kerouac's raincoat and miscellany for $50,640.

Bill Wagner, the attorney for Paul Blake Jr. - who has been homeless and now lives in a trailer home - said it is unlikely that anything already sold by the Sampas family can be reclaimed.

"If you don't contest a will over a certain period of time, it's considered to be valid," said Wagner, referring to Stella Sampas' will. "So more likely than not, Kerouac's raincoat will stay with Johnny Depp and the money he paid for it will stay with the Sampases."

Wagner said he will pursue book royalties for his client. In addition, he plans to ask the Sampases for a detailed list of what remains of the Kerouac archive. Wagner says that until such a list is produced, there is no way of knowing what has not been sold off.

Kerouac's "On the Road," published in 1957, continues to sell about 100,000 copies a year in the United States and Canada alone. Publication of the book, along with Allen Ginsberg's release of his poem "Howl" at a Fillmore Street performance gallery, marked the beginning of the Beat generation and turned San Francisco into the Beat capital.

Bay Area writers who have followed the case said they wished Jan Kerouac were alive today. Jan Kerouac met her father only twice. For many years, he denied her existence - a relationship eventually confirmed by blood tests.

Brenda Knight, author of a book about women of the Beat generation, met Jan Kerouac in 1995.

"What Jan wanted was what her father wanted," Knight said. "She wanted for all of his archives, books and belongings to be in a university library. Remember, at the beginning of Kerouac's career, he was a formalist writer. He accidentally became king of the Beats. He wanted academic credibility. Jan was really upset seeing everything being sold piece by piece, especially when her dad's old overcoat was sold to the actor."

Knight said that Jan frequently referenced a famous letter her father had reportedly written the day before he died of cirrhosis of the liver. (In the months leading to his death, Kerouac was drinking a quart of Johnnie Walker Red a day, and washing it down with a couple of dozen beers.) Dated Oct. 20, 1969, the letter was to Paul Blake: "This is Uncle Jack," Kerouac wrote. "I've turned over my entire estate, real, personal and mixed, to Memere (mom) and if she dies before me, it will be turned to you. I wanted to leave my estate to someone directly connected with the last remaining drop of my direct blood line, and not to leave a dingblasted f- g- thing to my wife's one hundred Greek relatives." The Sampas family has claimed that the Kerouac letter is a fake.

Gerry Nicosia edited and shepherded the new book "Jan Kerouac: A Life in Memory," to publication because he felt Jan was a creative force in her own right. She had written two novels, and the third one, "Parrot Fever," was nearly complete when she died June 5, 1996, at age 44 from kidney failure. Her early years were spent in and out of poverty and trouble - drugs, alcohol and prostitution.

But Nicosia said that in addition to inheriting her father's good looks and love of words, she too was a fighter. She was fighting to the end to protect her father's legacy.

"Jack was about fighting for justice," Nicosia said. "He had a strong feeling against 'rich fat cats,' especially those who got it by exploiting the poor. One of Jack's favorite quotes in 'On the Road' was, 'The earth belongs to me because I am poor.' "

An interview with Jack Kerouac by Steve Allen, done in 1959, is available on YouTube, at www.youtube.com. In the interview, Kerouac talks about writing "On the Road," and the meaning of the word Beat. He also reads from "On the Road," which had become an immediate best-seller and had Kerouac labeled the voice of his generation.

Reading beyond 'On the Road'

Jack Kerouac biographer Gerald Nicosia says there are four Kerouac novels you must read, besides "On the Road," for a full appreciation of the writer's genius.

The Dharma Bums, the book he wrote as a sequel to "On the Road," which many people think is actually more interesting and less dated than its predecessor. It made a national hero of poet and ecologist Gary Snyder, portrayed as Japhy Ryder in the novel, and introduced Buddhism to tens of thousands of Westerners who knew nothing about it before.

Visions of Cody, the Neal Cassady and Jack "on the road" story told in a nonlinear fashion, with the timeline completely exploded and incredibly long, sometimes 10,000-word riffs on seemingly insignificant events, like sitting in a cafeteria over a cup of coffee or kneeling to say a prayer in a dark church - as if Kerouac were writing high as a kite on tetrahydrocannabinol, which much of the time he was.

Doctor Sax, a perfect mixture of fantasy and reality, written in 1952, long before postmodernism became the vogue and writers like Tom Robbins discovered the power unleashed by letting real and fantasy characters interact on the printed page. The novel tells the story of 12-year-old Jackie Duluoz's adventures helping a slightly sinister superhero fight evildoers, based on the '30s radio show character "The Shadow."

Desolation Angels, a hip travelogue of America written long before latter-day imitations - which often sold far more copies - like "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." No novel you might read will contain a broader swath of the American fabric, from fire lookout stations in the Cascade Range to Seattle burlesque houses to North Beach jazz clubs to big-city skid rows to the parlors of the New York literati to sweltering Florida tract homes.

Six facts you might not know

1. Kerouac believed that his older brother Gerard, who died of rheumatic fever at age 10, was an actual saint, and in later life he often felt that Gerard was speaking directly to him from heaven.

2. Kerouac had the highest IQ in the history of Newport Naval Base at the time he was stationed there (1942), and because of it he was suspected of being a German spy. He was later discharged from the Navy for "angel tendencies," an early term for schizophrenia.

3. While docked in Greenland in the Merchant Marine, Kerouac traded his Horace Mann football sweater to an Eskimo for the Eskimo's handmade harpoon, which he saved all his life.

4. Later during World War II, Kerouac served on the S.S. Dorchester, on the voyage before it was sunk by German torpedoes with the loss of about 800 lives, including the famed Four Chaplains who gave their life jackets to others, as well as Kerouac's close friend, a black cook called Old Glory. Kerouac's life was saved by a telegram from Coach Lou Little calling him back to Columbia University to play football just before the Dorchester sailed again.

5. Kerouac loved to listen to, and would often scat-sing along with, Gregorian chants, which he called a "jazz Mass."

6. Contrary to the belief of '60s radicals like Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, who thought him a hopeless redneck, Kerouac actually opposed the Vietnam War. But his reason for opposing it was unique - he claimed it was "a conspiracy between the North and South Vietnamese to get American jeeps."